AI steps into the Albanian government: Meet Diella

On September 18, 2025, the Albanian government introduced an interesting new minister: Diella, an artificial intelligence-powered female figure created to take on the role of Minster of Public Procurement.

This phased and reasoned choice made by the Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama followed a specific path: in fact, Diella was born on January 19, 2025 as a virtual assistant on the e-Albania platform. There, it handled millions of requests from the citizens. Consequently, on September 11 it became Minister, debuting then on September 18 in Parliament. In the video presentation, Diella, which means "sun" in Albanian, wears traditional clothes and explains its objective: helping people, not taking their roles.

The government declared that the reason behind this choice is to take on more transparent and less corrupted politics, thanks to a neutral source like artificial intelligence. At the same time, they mean to fasten their services offering a direct mean. No more parliamentary questions to solve public procurement issues, only fast and easy on-line queries. Edi Rama defined this initiative as a great step toward his strategy, which aims to make Albania part of the European Union by 2030. Although the country is demonstrating an effective acceleration of its reforms to comply with the Union's demands, it is also true that the actual results of the fight against corruption are what really matter, not just the initiatives.

However, the opposition has shown its disagreement with this innovation to a point of forcing the suspension of the debate after only 25 minutes. Then, it tried to boycott the vote on the government program, which passed anyway. What the opposition fears is that Diella's job is actually to hide corruption, rather than defeat it. Specifically, the debate raised questions about constitutionality: in fact, the Albanian Constitution states the need for a minister in flesh and bone, a real person.

Despite this, Albania is not the first country to experiment with AI: in fact, the UAE already has had a minister for AI since 2017, which deals precisely with AI, digital economy and remote work applications.

The government's decision, led by Edi Rama, appears to make a clear and unambiguous statement about Albania's aspirations for European integration. It remains to be seen, however, if this innovation will have a tangible impact on the fight against internal corruption, which is the real test bench for the country.

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